his death<\/a> was \u201cpremature, unnecessary, and tragic\u201d. <\/p>\n\u201cI cannot put into words how horrible I feel. Things were never supposed to end this way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making her grief worse, flowers and a card Taylor left yesterday in tribute to her stepfather at the scene where he died had already gone. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt hardly even took a day for them to be stolen. To the people who took those, sincerely, enjoy the bad luck.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said taking flowers from a memorial site was a \u201cdisgusting\u201d thing to do. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn hard times, people are supposed to come together and support one another. Instead of making comments about, stealing from, or gossiping about the dead, show some respect and allow the wh\u0101nau to grieve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell formerly worked in the dairy farm industry and was the recipient of a dairy manager merit award in the 2019 Central Plateau Share Farmer of the Year awards.<\/p>\n
Rotorua police area investigations manager Senior Sergeant Mark Van Kempen said the police\u2019s thoughts were with Mitchell\u2019s family and friends during this difficult time.<\/p>\n
Van Kempen said the homicide investigation into his death was ongoing and police were conducting a large area canvass as part of enquiries in Fordlands today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still urging anyone who was in or around Ford Rd between 8pm and 8.45pm on Friday to come forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that someone in the community will have information that will be important to the investigation, and we ask that you contact us immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that people may be worried or cautious to come forward, however any information can be treated confidentially,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Police would also like to hear from anyone who saw a white Toyota Hiace van, registration DFR734, on Ford Rd or the surrounding areas, during that time.<\/p>\n
Anybody with information should contact the police via 105, either over the phone or online, referencing file number 251212\/4041.<\/p>\n
Information can also be provided anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.<\/p>\n
A forensic examination of the scene and vehicle was carried out on Saturday, and a post-mortem examination was carried out yesterday.<\/p>\n
Kelly Makiha<\/a> is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicholas Mitchell photographed a few years ago at dairy industry awards he attended. Photo \/ Supplied \u201cHe loved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1558,33452,6179,49122,116552,305,8916,12898,19872,10136,111,43,139,69,21940,1327,45608,116551,116550,4736,1361,20838,1337],"class_list":["post-184243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-been","tag-devastated","tag-died","tag-flowers","tag-fordlands","tag-have","tag-homicide","tag-investigation","tag-memorial","tag-named","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-placed","tag-rotorua","tag-sparking","tag-stepdaughter","tag-stepdaughters","tag-stolen","tag-that","tag-tribute","tag-victim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}